Haruka was milling through a crowd of concert-goers after a race earlier that day. At the moment, she was trying to get away from the crowd to avoid people congratulating her on her win that day. Right now the Three Lights were on an intermission, giving people more time to notice her going past. As she walked on, she noticed a foot come out to trip her and easily avoided it, spinning around to see who did it. She found herself surrounded by a bunch of guys she recognized from the race earlier that day... guys that didn't look too happy about being beaten.

One guy, who was decidedly the most sober-looking (though not by much), spoke first. "You know, girly, me and the guys were talking, and we decided we didn't like no girl beating us... 'Specially no lesbian."

Haruka's fists clenched at her sides, but determined not to fight a bunch of drunks, she tried to push her way out of the circle that they had formed around her. It didn't work too well.

"Hey, ain't you the girl whose girlfriend got raped then died later that year?" Another drunk made his voice heard, and all seemed to look more closely to see if he was right.

A third spoke, "Yeah! I think she is!"

Laughing, a fourth nudged yet another guy at his side. "I remember seeing that girl on the TV! She was a pretty little thing!"

Nodding drunkenly in agreement, another guy spoke up. "She was so pretty, I woulda went after her myself!"

That was the last straw. Haruka launched herself at that last guy, easily tackling him to the ground. In the next instant, her fist flew toward his face, and a small crunch was heard as his nose broke. Not stopping there, Haruka grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him to his feet. As soon as he was up, her knee went into his groin. At this point, one would have expected his buddies to join in, but they were being held away by the people who had circled around the fight. She released the guy, expecting him to back off at that point. He didn't. After taking a moment to groan, his drunken state of stupidity seemed to take over again, and he rushed her. She stepped to the side and grabbed his wrist. Using mainly his momentum and weight more than her strength, there was a sickening 'pop' as his shoulder dislocated, followed by a crackling sound as she twisted and broke his wrist. All of this was performed without an ounce of emotion still lingering on her face.

Finally, security got through, closely followed by all the members of the Three Lights. One security officer busied himself with radioing the concert paramedics while the rest collected the remainder of the drunks.

One stayed to talk to Haruka. "Since you seem to be the only coherent one involved in this, mind telling me what happened?"

Looking over at the woman, Haruka lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Nothing I could say could possibly justify this to you. Safe to say, he pushed it a little too far for my patience."

Taiki scowled faintly, seeming to understand what had occurred almost immediately. He wasn't all that close to Haruka, but he did know very few things would drive her to attacking someone who was obviously at such a huge disadvantage. "He said something about Michiru, didn't he?"

Haruka nodded a bit.

The security guard's hard expression softened slightly. "Yeah. I remember you from the news..." Nodding, she turned to the rest of the guards. "Alright, boys, let's get these drunks out of here!"

As they left with the rest of the trouble-started in tow, she turned to look back at Haruka with a smirk. "My son would never forgive me if I took you in, Ms. Ten'ou, but see to it that this never happens again."

Haruka nodded, a little dazed at how easily the woman was letting her off.

"Say... would you mind paying him a visit? It'd be great for him, he's been a little down lately."

"Yeah, sure," Haruka said with a small laugh. "It's the least I can do."

The woman pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down her address. "Tomorrow around noon?"

Agreeing, Haruka took and pocketed the piece of paper. The woman left.

Intermission over, the Three Lights headed back to the stage. Haruka left to go back to her hotel, any desire to celebrate gone deflated from the rather rude reminder of the reason she had left the world of racing in the first place.

The next day, Seiya went with Haruka to the security guard's house. She rang the doorbell, and stood on the porch waiting for someone to answer. The woman did quickly, and smiled as she saw who it was.

"Great, you came!" Looking over to Seiya, her smile turned into a smirk. "I'd be wary of entering this house if I were you... I have a teenage daughter who has a thing for your band."

"Uh... Haruka? Mind if I come back later to get you, or..."

Chuckling, Haruka shoved him in before her as the woman stepped aside to let them in. "No way, little man. You owe me. Besides... far be it from me to deprive a girl from meeting a member of her favorite band!"

Grumbling something about life being unfair, Seiya walked inside, though unwillingly.

Both were shown how American this family was the further they walked into the house.

The woman sat them down in the living room, then went to the front of the hallway. "Simon! You have a guest!"

"Just a minute, Mom!" A voice came down the hall, sounding rather young.

As they waited, a pretty blonde, about seventeen, came down the hall. Chatting on the phone, she seemed oblivious to the two visitors and passed on by. Seiya breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't so lucky the second time. She came back, and nearly dropped the phone and the glass of juice she had gotten. "Kou Seiya!" The shock wore of, and Seiya groaned as the girl began telling whoever was on the other end to get the rest of 'the girls' to her house as quickly as possible. Seiya made to get up and slip away, but Haruka grabbed his belt and pulled him back down.

As this went on, a young child, a boy about ten years old, wheeled his wheelchair down the hall, then froze in amazement. "Wow! Ten'ou Haruka!"

Grinning easily, she rose from the couch and walked over to him. "Heard you wanted to meet me..."

The boy nodded his head. "You're the greatest! You never lose or nothing!"

"Well... I wouldn't say that. My friend over there beat me in football the other day."

"I bet if you raced him, you'd beat him by a mile!"

Haruka grinned and looked back at a now slightly grumpy Seiya and gave a teasing wink. "True."

"Hey! Could I ride in your racecar?"

"Well, that's up to your mom."

"Mom?" The kid looked to his mother, who had come back into the room and stood close by with a small smile on her lips. "Pleeeeeease?!"

The woman grinned, laughing faintly. "As long as Ms. Ten'ou promises not to go as fast as she does in her races... it's alright with me."

"Cool! Let's go!" The boy headed out the door quickly, as if he expected his mom would change his mind if he didn't get out of there fast enough.

Smiling, Haruka looked to the woman. "I'll take it easy, I promise." She then headed out the door after the boy.

A couple hours later, they returned. The boy carried with him several autographed pictures of other racers for his friends. None were of the guys from the night before.

They went into the house, only to find the living room full of girls.

As soon as he noticed Haruka standing in the doorway looking ultimately amused, Seiya jumped up from the couch, where he was surrounded by girls, and made his way to Haruka.

"You've got to help me! I want to convince these girls I have a girlfriend," Seiya whispered urgently.

"So? Make up some girl."

"You don't understand, Haruka... they insisted I name someone, and.. I don't know what came over me, but your name came out."

"What?! You're nuts!"

"Please, Haruka? I can't have it going about that I lied to a bunch of teenage girls."

Looking over to find the girls watching expectantly, Haruka growled out her next words in a whisper. "You are going to owe me big time, buddy." With that, she bent down to close the few inches of difference in their height and pressed her lips to Seiya's.

He surprised her by snaking an arm about her waist, pulling her closer, and then slipping his tongue into her mouth.

She almost shoved him away, but let the charade go on. In retaliation, she pinched his butt. That made him jump and pulled away, glaring. She only smirked and left him to go talk briefly with the mom about inviting her family and a bunch of Simon's friends to her last race in the area before they went elsewhere.

When she walked back to Seiya, slinging an arm over his shoulder as they walked out. To an outsider, it looked like a tender embrace. If someone saw Seiya's face, they would have seen him wincing from how tight she was squeezing.

"You do know that in all probability, this is going to be all over the news, don't you? 'The lesbian racer turns straight for famous idol'?"

Seiya nodded, still wincing in pain.

"Right. So, for payback. There's this guy down at the track, and it seems he has a thing for a certain member of the Three Lights..."

Seiya groaned as they climbed into the car and pulled away. He knew better than to protest, and only sat back and listen as Haruka continued to outline the details.